South Korea Trip, August 21

Good morning Gangnam!  It is 6:30am, and I am excited to start the day!  The weather will be mostly cloudy with a high of 33°C (91°F).

Today's Agenda

Tonight, I will be eating at n.GRILL at the top of Namsan Tower.  Right after dinner, Solji is releasing a new song.  To pass the time until then, I will explore Seoul.  (At first, I wanted to climb a mountain, but I would be too pressed for time.)  Today will be a full day.

• Explore Seoul and a museum.
• Eat at n.GRILL.
• Enjoy Solji's new song and write about it for LEGGO News.

Today's Experiences

Today was a very good day.  I explored a museum and had a delicious meal.

As good as today was, tomorrow will be even better.  However, let's not dwell on the future yet, and let's appreciate the very good present.

Hangul Museum

To pass the time until my special dinner, I decided to visit a special museum that I unfortunately missed out on earlier this month.

Readers of my blog may recognize the building as the National National Museum of Korea.  I visited this museum recently.

While I did see the buliding of the National Museum of Korea, that was not my destination.  My destination was the Hangul Museum just next to it.  I missed this very special museum during my last visit because it closes at 6:00pm, and I was too late to enjoy it.  This time, I found the museum during open hours.

Hangul is especially interesting to me because it is such a brilliant alphabet.  It was designed specifically to improve literacy in Korea, and it is by far the easiest alphabet to learn.  It is said, "a wise person can comprehend Hangul in one morning, and even an unwise person can learn it in ten days."  It took me just one day to learn it.

The invention of Hangul is attributed to King Sejong in 1443.  This past king is very revered in South Korea, and it makes sense why.  Sejong's efforts not only improved literacy but also helped to define South Korea's identity and promote the flow of the culture.  I am in awe after learning more about him.

I explored the Hangul museum, read every didactic label, and appreciated the beauty of every exhibit.

I should have taken more pictures of the exhibits, the many scrolls and books, but I became too focused on the interesting experience to remember to snap a few more photos.  This is definitely a museum to visit if one visits South Korea.

On an unrelated note, I have seen letters on the sidewalk that I could not read: "ㄱㅏㅇㄴㅏㅁ".  After touring the museum and learning about how Hangul has been styled in different ways, I was able to read the text as "강남", or Gangnam.

I was surprised and happy when I encountered this different way of writing the district name and was able to read it for the first time with my new knowledge.

Back to the topic of the museum, there is another section of the Hangul museum that is targeted more towards children.  I was especially intrigued by the cube theater and the exhibit room styled after the classroom.  Both of these rooms were really cool to me.

There were of course more rooms than these, but the rest were too childish for me.  Maybe someday I will have a kid and can take them to enjoy those rooms; then I will be more fulfilled by the other rooms.  :)

Museum Park

After leaving the Hangul Museum, I walked around the park next to it.  I still had about an hour before I had to head home, and exploring parks has become one of my favorite hobbies here.

How is anything so beautiful?  I especially like the mix of urban and nature.  It is metaphorically symbiotic, an example of humans and nature coexisting.  Especially in such a large city, it is reassuring that tomorrow will not be just cities of concrete.  There will be nature too.

Another reassuring sight are these free exercise areas.

These areas are scattered throughout Seoul and are numerous!  If you go to any park, you can use these park gyms to stretch and exercise.  It really shows care and love for the people.

Namsan Tower, n.GRILL

I had a reservation at n.GRILL for 5pm, and they recommended that I arrive at 3pm so that I have plenty of time to get to the top of the mountain.  Because of the reservation, I had to leave the park earlier in the day and go home to get cleaned up for my trip to this nice restaurant.

The trip to n.GRILL was really cool.  I rode a cable car to the top, then I walked through really cool digital hallways, finally I arrived at the observation deck to hang out until my reservation time.

The really cool rooms on the way to the top were unnecessary but appreciated.

The views from the observation deck were impressive, but I only give that 4 out of 5 stars.  The viewable distance was limited to about 30km (19mi) due to pollution, which was disappointing but still good.

After enjoying these views for an hour, it was time for dinner.

Dinner was a seven course meal.  There were two cool appetizers followed by a warm appetizer, then a soup, then the main course; after the main course, two desserts were served.

This is objectively the best meal that I have had in my life.  It checked all the boxes.  The food was perfect in every category.  The service and environment were splendid on top of that.

The only meal that is better is my grandmother's pancakes.  I say that n.GRILL was objectively the best, but subjectively it was not.  My grandmother's pancakes are made with love, and n.GRILL can never get close. ❤

For those who are curious, the price tag for the n.GRILL meal was 355,000완 ($266.00 USD).

Seoul at Night

I would have docked n.GRILL and Namsan Tower a point for the polluted view, but it turned very beautiful when the sun set.  On my hike down the mountain, I glanced over the railing at the city and was captivated by its beauty.  I stayed and watched the sun set.  Almost an hour passed, and I still did not want to leave.

Further down the mountain were additional stops to enjoy the view.

Some say that there are no stars in the skies of Seoul.  I say to look towards the ground.  The city lights are the stars, and they twinkle just the same.  Maybe they are even more beautiful, because every one of these stars supports life.